Hospitality is one of the most badly affected industries in the current inflationary conditions, and is experimenting with various schemes and strategies to keep up the footfalls and sales graph.

Noodle Bar, a food and hospitality chain from Blue Foods Pvt. Ltd, recently introduced Happy Lunch Menu across all its restaurants (excluding the one at Phoenix Mill in Mumbai) in the country. The offer provides a range of lunch combos at affordable rates, while liquor is served under ‘buy 1, get 1 free’ offer during happy hours (4 pm-7pm).

“With double-digit inflation and price hike, people have cut down on eating out in order to reduce their gross monthly expense. Hence, consumers see value in such deals and they come back often. This makes a considerable business proposition for us,” Dina Mukherjee, head of marketing and communication at Blue Foods, told Indiaretailing.

The Noodle Bar offer ends in the last week of August.

Mukherjee confirmed that the scheme has been successful and helped in keeping up the regular footfalls. “These offers lend us repeat visits from our customers, and their frequency improves. Also, with word-of-mouth the offer gains momentum, and helps in getting new customers who would have otherwise preferred to go to other restaurants,” she added.

Nirula's is another food chain that has introduced innovative strategies to battle the inflationary onslaught. The company has introduced value packs in all its eateries across the country.

Speaking to Indiaretailing, Sudipta Sen Gupta, VP, marketing and sales, Nirula’s, said, “We have introduced various value meals across our stores in the country. These meals are priced very economically at Rs 75 per pack. This has been one successful strategy that has helped us draw in consumers even during the inflationary period. We are planning to introduce more such offers in the future.”

While Blue Foods is planning to introduce similar ‘happy hours’ offers at Spaghetti Kitchen, its Italian lifestyle restaurant, Nirula’s is working on reducing the backend and logistics costs.

“We are reducing the backend and logistics costs, and also working to reduce wastage in our outlets,” said Sen Gupta.

“Bombay Blue, Cream Centre, FoodTalk – The Gourmet Food Court, Spoon – The Maha Food Court, and Gelato Italiano are some of our other formats where value packages are becoming popular among our consumers,” Mukherjee informed.